by Tom Kuhn
And the German, my brother, who even
Envies those others: they all
Know this, there is
An October.
Now even as the planes of the fascists
Bear down upon him
The Spanish militiaman has
Less reason to fear.
But in Moscow, the famous capital city
Of all workers
Every year the unending parade
Of the victors marches through Red Square
Bearing the emblems of their industries
Images of tractors and the wool bundles of the textile mills
And the wheat sheaves of the grain processing plants.
Over their heads the fighter planes
Fill the skies, and in front
Their regiments and tank brigades.
On broad cloth banners
They parade their slogans and
Portraits of their greatest teachers.
The banners are transparent
So the whole scene is always in view.
High on thin poles
The narrow pennants flutter. In the distant streets
Whenever the procession pauses
There are dances and games. Joyfully
They pass by, many processions side by side, joyfully
But to all oppressors
A warning.
O great October of the working classes!
IV
To the waverer
You say:
Things are going badly for our cause.
The darkness grows. Our powers decline.
Now, after toiling for so many years
We are in a worse position than at the beginning.
But our enemy is stronger than ever.
His powers, it seems, have grown. He begins to look invincible.
Oh we have made mistakes, there’s no denying it.
Our numbers dwindle rapidly.
Our precepts are in confusion. Some of our words
Have been twisted by the enemy beyond recognition.
What is now false of what we once said
Some of it or all of it?
On whom can we still rely? Are we who remain just flotsam, thrown
Out of the living stream? Will we live on
Understanding nobody and understood by none?
Is it luck that we need?
So you ask. Expect
No other answer than your own!
To those who have been brought into line
Broadcast from Moscow in 1935
So as not to lose their bread
In times of increasing oppression
Quite a lot of people resolve to tell the truth
About the crimes of the regime in upholding exploitation
No longer, but
Also not to spread the lies of the regime, so
Not to uncover anything, but
Also not to prettify anything. Those who act like this
Seem anew to assert their determination
Even in times of increasing repression
Not to lose face, but in reality
They are only determined
Not to lose their bread. Indeed, this decision
Not to tell untruths, serves them from now on as a pretext
To remain silent about the truth. It is a stance that can, admittedly
Only be maintained for a short while. But even in this period
While they still go in and out of offices and newspaper buildings
Laboratories and factory yards, as people
From whose mouths no untruths come
They begin to do harm. For they who bat no eyelid
At the sight of bloody crimes lend those crimes
The appearance of the natural. They describe
The fearful misdeed as something as unremarkable as the rain
Also as unpreventable as the rain.
So, by way of their silence, they lend support to
The criminals, but soon
They will notice that in order not to lose their bread
They must not only remain silent about the truth, but also
Tell the lie. Not ungraciously
The exploiters embrace those who are prepared
Not to lose their bread.
They do not go along like men corrupted
For they have not been given anything, rather
Nothing has yet been taken from them.
When the eulogist
Rising from the table of the powerful, opens wide his mouth
And you can see between his teeth
The remains of the meal, then you listen
To his speech with scepticism.
But the eulogy of him
Who but yesterday reviled the powerful and was not invited to the victory banquet
Weighs heavier. He
Surely is the friend of the oppressed. They know him.
What he says, is right
And what he does not say, is not.
And now he says, there is
No oppression.
The murderer does well to send
The murdered man’s brother
Whom he has bought, to testify
That his brother was struck
By a roof tile. The simple lie
Cannot of course help those, who would not lose their bread
For long. There are too many
Of their sort. Quickly
They get embroiled in the merciless competition of all those
Who would not lose their bread: the will to lie is no longer enough.
Facility is called for and passion required.
The wish, not to lose your bread, becomes mixed
With the wish, by a particular exercise of skill, to lend meaning
To the most nonsensical drivel, to speak
In spite of it all, the unspeakable.
What is more, they must heap
More praise on the oppressors than anyone else, for they
Are under suspicion, that once upon a time
They spoke ill of oppression. Thus
Those who know the truth become the wildest liars.
And even so, all that works only
Until someone comes along and accuses them
Of having once been honest, once decent, and then
They lose their bread.
On the death of a fighter for peace
To the memory of Carl von Ossietzky
He who did not surrender
Has been beaten to death
He who has been beaten to death
Did not surrender.
The mouth of the admonisher
Has been stopped up with earth.
The bloody enterprise
Begins.
Over the grave of the friend of peace
The battalions stomp.
So was the struggle in vain?
If he who did not fight alone has been beaten to death
Then the enemy
Has not yet triumphed.
Advice to visual artists concerning the fate of their works in the coming wars
Today I thought
How you friends too, who paint and draw
And you who wield the chisel will have
In the times of the great wars that are surely coming
Nothing to laugh about.
For you ground your hopes
Which are necessary for the construction of works of art
Above all on generations yet to come!
It follows, you will need for your paintings, drawings and stones
Created under such privation
Good hiding places.
Consider, for example, that the artistic treasures of the British Museum
Plundered from all corners of the globe
At some sacrifice of lives and money, the labours
Of long-lost peoples, now reposited at a street corner
Can be, with a few explosive bombs, reduced to dust
One fine morning between nine and ten past.
So where to put your works of art? The holds of ships
Are not safe, the sanatoria in the woods
The steel vaults of the banks are not safe enough.
You ought perhaps to try and get permission
To execute your paintings in the tunnels of the underground railway
Or, better still, in aircraft hangars
Buried in concrete seven floors under.
Paintings painted straight onto the walls
Take up no room.
And a few still lifes and landscapes
Will not trouble the bomber crews.
That said, you would then have to erect signs
In prominent places with easily legible directions
That at such and such a depth beneath such and such a building (or pile of rubble)
There lies a small canvas of yours, a representation of
The face of your wife.
So that future generations, your unborn comforters
May discover that in our times there was art
And pursue enquiries, shovelling away the debris.
All the while the watchman in his bearskin
High on the skyscraper roof, rifle in his lap
(Or bow and arrow), keeps watch for the enemy, or the kite
He craves to fill his hungry stomach.
The farmer’s address to his ox
(After an Egyptian peasant’s song from the year 1400 BC)
O great ox, divine puller of the plough
Deign to plough straight! Preserve the furrows
Please, from confusion! You
Go before us, our leader, giddyup!
We bent down low to cut your fodder
Deign now to consume it, dearest provider! Don’t trouble yourself
While eating, about the furrows, just eat!
For your barn, O protector of the family
We dragged, groaning, the timber, we
Sleep in the damp, you in the dry. Yesterday
You coughed, beloved pacesetter.
We were beside ourselves. You’re not going to
Peg out, are you, before the sowing, you dog?
On the birth of a son
(After the Chinese of Su Tung-p’o 1036–1101)
Families, when a child is born
Wish that it should be intelligent.
I, whose whole life
Has been ruined by intelligence
Can only hope, my son
May turn out to be
Dull, ignorant and lazy.
Then he may enjoy a peaceful life
As a minister in the cabinet.
A worker’s speech to a doctor
We know what makes us sick!
When we’re sick, we hear
You are the one who will heal us.
For ten long years, they say
You have studied in fine schools
Built at the expense of the people
And learnt to heal, and on your learning
You have expended a fortune.
So you must be able to heal.
Can you heal us?
When we come to you
Our rags are torn off
And you tap around our naked bodies.
As to the cause of our sickness
A glance at our rags would
Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out
Our bodies and our clothes.
The strain in our shoulder
Comes, you say, from the damp, from which
The mould in our flats comes too.
So tell us:
Where does the damp come from?
Too much work and too little food
Make us weak and gaunt.
Your prescription:
You must put on weight.
You may as well tell the reeds
To keep their feet dry.
How much time will you have for us?
We can see: a carpet in your apartment
Costs the equivalent
Of five thousand doctor’s appointments.
You will probably say, you
Are not to blame. The damp patch
On the wall of our flat
Says much the same.
Call to arms
1
Call to a sick Communist
We hear, you have been taken sick with tuberculosis.
We entreat you: see this
Not as a turn of fate, but
As an attack by the oppressors, who
Exposed you, poorly clothed and in damp housing
To hunger. That is how you were made sick.
We charge you take up the struggle at once
Against sickness and against oppression
With all possible cunning, rigour and tenacity
As a part of our great struggle, which
Has to be waged from a position of weakness
In utter misery, and in which
Everything is permitted which will aid our victory, a victory
Which is the victory of humanity over the scum of the earth.
We await your return, as soon as possible
To your post, comrade.
2
The sick Communist’s answer to the comrades
Comrades, by hunger, poor housing and inadequate clothing
I was made sick and removed from your ranks.
I immediately took up the struggle for my recovery.
I declare to everyone who sees me
The cause of my sickness
I explicitly name the guilty ones.
At the same time I wage the struggle against the sickness funds
Who seek to cheat me at every little turn.
I wage the struggle from my sickbed.
I have informed myself about the liabilities of the hospital
The daily abuses committed against sick members of the oppressed classes.
I apply every resource which will help me
Recover my good health.
And so, although stricken and wounded
I have not left your ranks. I will stick with you
Until my last breath. I have no thought of yielding.
I beg you
Continue to depend on me.
3
Call to the doctors and nurses
Now to you, doctors and nurses. We suppose
There must be some amongst you
Few perhaps, but some all the same, who
Remember their obligation to those who
Have a human face. These amongst you
We challenge to support our sick
In their struggle against the sickness funds and the practises of the hospitals
With regard to the oppressed.
We know, in order to do that you will have to
Take up the struggle against others too, the compliant tools
Of exploitation and deception. We ask that you
Look upon these as your own enemies. By so doing
You are, after all, only waging your own struggle against your own exploiters
Who threaten you every hour with that same hunger
That has brought our comrade low.
Join our struggle!
Taunting the soldier of the revolution His answer
1
General with the holes in your boots
Tell us, what’s the deal?
Who do you command? And just
When did you last have a proper meal?
Your head’s full of plans?
But: your belly is empty.
You say, you’ve got a flag
But where is your army?
You’re a statesman with just one pair
Of un-ironed trousers.
Does your cabinet meet
Underneath the arches?
The king trumps the jack
The ace trumps the king
Your name goes down in history
But you’re still a sorr
y thing.
If two and two is four
You’ll come to power all right
(And bottom will be top), but:
Where will you sleep tonight?
2
If I want a pair of boots that’s decent
For, it’s true, these don’t keep out the weather
Then I’ll need to get after the people
Who control the wholesale trade in leather
Need to organize the leather markets.
Yes, my trousers are in tatters.
If I want to make it through the winter
I will have to cover up my bottom
So I need to know where trousers come from
Need to get the cloth mills in my ambit.
If I’m to enjoy a proper breakfast
Then I’ll have to break the corn exchanges
Send out tractors to the harvest
Get to talking with the farmers
Need to look to wheat production.
If I’m not content to play the soldier
In the wars of those who have oppressed me
I must laugh to scorn the things that formerly depressed me
Must unfurl my own flag, yes, you know, the red one
And declare war for the things that matter.
Cantata for the anniversary of Lenin’s death
1
When Lenin died
A soldier of the honour guard, so it is told,
Said to his comrades: I didn’t want
To believe it. So I went in where he’s lying and
Shouted in his ear: “Ilyich
The exploiters are coming!” He didn’t stir. Now
I know he is dead.